The So-Called Syrian Moderates Work with the Extremists

Yesterday, I heard constant stories about how the Obama Administration wants to “work with” the so-called Syrian moderates—in other words, to arm and fund them. I have written about this several times. It is an idea that is proffered not only by Democrats but by Republicans. As Bob Allen recently wrote, it is a crazy and dangerous idea that can only put us in more danger from extremists with American-financed weapons.

Nevertheless, others keep pretending that the weapons and money can be sent over to Syria and not end up in the hands of the extremists of the Islamic state.

It is an incredible pretence. The “moderates” admit that they are working closely with the extremists. According to the PJ Tatler:

As President Obama laid out his “strategy” last night for dealing with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and as bipartisan leadership in Congress pushes to approve as much as $4 billion to arm Syrian “rebels,” it should be noted that the keystone to his anti-Assad policy — the “vetted moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) — is now admitting that they, too, are working with the Islamic State.

This confirms PJ Media’s reporting last week about the FSA’s alliances with Syrian terrorist groups.

On Monday, the Daily Star in Lebanon quoted a FSA brigade commander saying that his forces were working with the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate — both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — near the Syrian/Lebanon border.

The report goes on to detail a host of ways in which the “moderates” are in league with everyone else. The fact is that there are no real moderates as a viable option for training, funding, and arming that won’t empower Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

This is what the D.C. foreign policy establishment has reduced itself to when it comes to Syria — cozying up to al-Qaeda (or Iran and Assad) in the name of “countering violent extremism,” namely ISIS, and entertaining each other with cocktail party talk of “moderate wings” of al-Qaeda. As my colleague Stephen Coughlin observes, our bipartisan foreign policy establishment has created a bizarre language about Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid the stark reality that we lost both wars. This is the state American foreign policy finds itself in on the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda.

Sending weapons to Libya is simply asking for another Benghazi massacre. We need to stop arming terrorists.